Poll: Old subject? Invert Y axis Camera

[Jamash]

Inverted, because I play 3D games using a controller with two identical analogue sticks.

Taking a FPS game for example, the left stick moves my character through the 3D space and moves forwards, backwards, left and right, while the identical right stick operates under the same principles and controls the camera (or character's upper body) in the same 3D space, so forwards to look down and backwards to look up. Up and down do exist, but they have no bearing on camera controls. Up is jump and down is crouch.

The argument for non-inverted, i.e. that up is up and down is down, seems nonsensical to me because it's arbitrarily imposing 2D conditions on a 3D stick used to control something in a 3D space. There is no up on an analogue stick because it's up by default, whereas down on an analogue stick us just a button press (L3 or R3) and is only used for minor commands (such as crouch, which makes sense because you press down to move down).

The only way up and down could exist on a controller is if you hold your controller at 90 degrees out in front of you so that pushing forwards on the stick is pushing it up towards the ceiling and pushing backwards on a stick is moving it down towards the floor, but that is a very odd and uncomfortable way use a controller.

I can't use non-inverted controls because I just can't visualise the camera or crosshairs being 2D in a 3D environment when all the other controls are also 3D (although I have no problem controlling a pointer normally in a 2D map or menu, because that is exclusively 2D and inverted 3D movement doesn't apply).

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Nope, it doesn't make any sense to me.

Unless I'm playing a flight sim or something, then I can stand Y inversion. Inverting the X axis would only make sense to me when I'm playing something like a sailing sim I think.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

No, I hate inverted controls. I remember I played the Deus Ex PS2 port on PS3 and it had the Y-Axis inverted and no way to change it. That said while I don't like inversion I don't see a good reason to no have it as an option.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Either way never really bothered me as I could adjust to both pretty easily.

 

[gandhi the peacemake]

It's interesting seeing the responses, as they all seem to place a great deal of emphasis on accurately emulating the physical motion of a head/plane/etc. They're all sort of right and sort of wrong, depending on how they visualize it. For my part, I tend to boil inverted/non-inverted down to "manipulating the axis" (inverted) and "manipulating the lens" (non-inverted).

When I use inverted controls (and I rarely do nowadays, though I did for a good few years), I visualize the analog stick as a rod extending from the back of the camera, with, say, a character's neck being the pivot point. Moving the analog stick up moves the rod up pivots the character's head down tilts the FOV down. (EDIT: This sort of visualization is how I can understand the Japanese dev habit of inverting x-axis controls as well. Moving the analog stick to the right moves the rod right pivots the character's head left. That being the case, I've never been able to reconcile this conceptualization with my habit of non-inverting the x-axis, which may explain why I tend to gravitate towards...)

When I use non-inverted controls, I visualize the analog stick as being the lens of the camera, or the eye of the character, or what have you, and any analog movement directly correlates to the eye/lens movement. Moving the analog stick up tilts the lens up.

So I suppose the major difference between the two methods is which side of the "pivot" point you decide you're on.

About the only exception to this is with flight controls. The analog stick more or less translates directly to a plane's flight stick, so... yeah. Inverted all the way.

EXCEPT, of course, SPACE flight games, where you have generally greater freedom of movement. Those games I tend to veer towards non-inverted left y-axis for more... stable controls, I suppose, with the left x-axis and right stick all performing various functions depending on the feel of the game.

 

[Something Amyss]

My and my brothers reasoning is If you put your hand on someones head and pull backwards which way do they look?

Wouldn't you have to invert the X axis too then? Because if you pull left they see right. [/quote]

It's a bad way of looking at it, because you don't need an external force. When you look down, your head moves forward.

I've never met someone who plays inverted on the X axis, only the Y axis so that reasoning immediately falls apart.

I've played more than a few Japanese games where X is inverted by default (called "normal" in the control scheme often enough), some of which had no option to flip them.

On a side note, I find it hilarious when people act like such a control scheme is some insurmountable task, that learning how to do something slightly different is akin to the legendary tasks of Hercules.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Of course I use inverted controls. When I look up my head tilts back, and when I look down my head tilts forward. By inverting the Y axis the joystick/thumbstick mirrors the motion of my neck, allowing for much more fluid controls. People who use controls that totally counter their intuitive body movements are just weird. And unnatural. And, possibly, horrible human beings.

 

[2xDouble]

When you push left, the camera should go left.
When you push right, the camera should go right.

So...
When you push up, the camera should go up.
When you push down, the camera should go down.

Never got people who could stand the controls going the wrong way.

While the controller/joystick is held parallel to the ground (a very common playing position) pressing "up" on the joystick is not moving upward in space; it's moving forward. And, as so many have pointed out, from a first person perspective, moving forward without moving entirely is naturally tilting down. A simple experiment proves this: while sitting upright, move your head forward until you can't anymore. Eventually, unless you're trying to be clever (in which case, you can still move your head forward, so keep moving), you will pivot and look toward the ground. It works the same in reverse, the more backward you move your head, the higher-up your gaze. It's not "wrong", it's science.

Aside: I suspect there is a correlation between playing position and inversion preference. As someone who prefers non-inverted controls, do you (or whomever) hold the controller flush to the ground or to your face?

Moving on: I should point out again, this is relevant primarily with the first-person perspective and only using a joystick. Mouse controls, for example, work differently because mice slide rather than pivot. Similarly, isometric perspectives break this convention, as the world is sliding around in two dimensions rather than pivoting in three. Third-person controls can go either way, depending on the freedom of movement and implementation of the camera rig.

Now, to make things really weird:
On the one hand, moving the camera upward while locked onto a character/avatar naturally changes the perspective downward.
On the other hand, tilting the camera upward, by definition, changes its perspective upward.
On yet another hand, because 3D space is weird like that, flying the camera up without being locked on a target changes only its elevation without tilting upward or downward, OR,
On the same yet slightly different hand (see what I mean?), sliding the camera forward causes no change in tilt or elevation, creating a zoom-in effect.
All of these and more can - and logically should - be bound to the "up" button/direction. That's not even talking about other directions and dual stick controls (which have similar translation issues).

Inverted X, however, makes no sense to me in any perspective. I assume it's supposed to be for people who are left-handed, somehow, or suffer from dyslexia or similar conditions. I don't know anyone that plays fully inverted, so I can't and won't speak to it.

 

[kurokotetsu]

My and my brothers reasoning is If you put your hand on someones head and pull backwards which way do they look?

Wouldn't you have to invert the X axis too then? Because if you pull left they see right.

It's a bad way of looking at it, because you don't need an external force. When you look down, your head moves forward.

I don't really care that much about that way of looking at it. All rationalizations seem as a way to explain yourself why you do it after the fact, not usually a conscious train of thought that you do when thinking why to do it. Just pointing out a bit of logical error. Also, how do do define head for that? My chin is farther back from a vertical plane when I look down, while my forehead has moved foward a bit. So the whole head doesn't move on in a single, direction in that axis.